| Maryland Hospitals Announce New Emergency Preparedness
Partnership
Three major hospitals in Bethesda, Maryland, have formed an Emergency
Preparedness Partnership to improve and coordinate their responses
to disasters.
The hospitals are the Clinical Center at the National Institutes
of Health, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services;
Suburban Hospital, a community-owned hospital serving Montgomery
County and the surrounding area; and the National Naval Medical
Center, part of the Department of Defense. The NIH Clinical Center
is located between the Navy Medical Center on Wisconsin Avenue and
Suburban Hospital on Old Georgetown Road.
"In this partnership, the 'whole' far exceeds what the three
institutions could do independently," said Dr. John I. Gallin,
NIH Clinical Center Director. "Naval Medical Center staff are
skilled and trained to respond to all kinds of emergencies and Suburban
Hospital is a level II trauma center. The NIH Clinical Center has
physicians who represent almost every medical and surgical specialty
and subspecialty.”
Coordinated collaboration and capitalizing on complementary strengths
are essential to an effective regional response to man-made or natural
disasters in the Washington metro area, partnership leaders say.
"In the event of a disaster, we are obligated to protect and
preserve the health and well being of our community," said
Rear Admiral Adam Robinson, Commander, National Naval Medical Center.
"Pooling our medical resources will substantially enhance local
emergency responsiveness and maximize the support we provide to
our community."
"As a trauma center, Suburban Hospital would have a major
role in the event of a regional emergency," said Brian Gragnolati,
President and CEO of Suburban Hospital. "This partnership will
provide a mechanism to help us better serve both the community of
Bethesda and the entire metropolitan Washington region should a
natural or man-made disaster strike."
Partnership goals include:
- Assuring that each institution can respond rapidly and effectively
to any emergency situation;
- Providing streamlined integration of the responses of
the three partner institutions with other community, regional,
and national emergency plans; and
- Establishing a model for other federal and private sector
hospitals to form similar partnerships.
Top managers from the partner hospitals have been meeting for
several months and teams have been established to address key
issues.
The Clinical Center is the clinical research hospital for the National
Institutes of Health (NIH). Through clinical research, physicians
and scientists translate laboratory discoveries into better treatments,
therapies and interventions to improve the nation's health. The
Clinical Center's new hospital, the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research
Center, was dedicated on September 22. |
